The La Speciosa project was born from the convergence between Ricardo’s immersion in wine since the early days of the Goliardos da Mãe d’água bar, where he served supernatural wines alongside the rough Clelia to a curious virgin audience, and his strong connection to the land of the Mirandese plateau. La Speciosa awakened a heritage of old vineyards that had been dormant due to lack of interest, but still cultivated and cared for by a number of traditional farmers in the area, such as Zé Claudino, António, Magro, Nascimento, Terita, Belmiro, Catrino, Aquilino, Manolo, Isilda and Ilda, near the Douro viewpoint in Miranda. As the conductor of several small plots and the driving force behind a high-quality garage cooperative in the cellar of his family home, Ricardo captured the essence of these vineyards like a photographer and gave a future to the fruit of this land, where the Tinta Gorda, Bastardo, Malvasia and Verdelho grape varieties are the most widely planted, in addition to other very old vines yet to be identified. The soils of the vineyards in Especiosa are all similar, with a lot of sedimentary rock, quartz and granite and steep slopes. In Resbarina, in Miranda, the soil is typically granitic, close to the river. The heritage of vineyards that are over 50 years old and even centuries old is impressive, and at this altitude of between 800 and 900 metres, on granitic soils, the slow and late ripening cycle, with grapes that are so healthy that they often do not require treatment, produces delicious, light wines.
With his technical rigour and manual skills as a trained engineer, and after taming the impetuous side of this harsh land, Alvesoğlu manages to impart character and expressiveness to wines that already speak Mirandese, making the ‘Menina d’Uva’ less isolated.